


Reveil

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-22
Updated: 2003-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They clutched their spears and their swords, their helmets and their shields.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reveil

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sai

 

 

There must be something, the men's faces seemed to say. They clutched their spears and their swords, their helmets and their shields. They pressed the heels of their hands together to keep their fingers from trembling. 

They were silent when they were not dying or killing. Faces once familiar to a man were now forgotten somewhat; maybes and might haves. I know you, they thought of saying to the man standing beside them, visibly trembling, their face pale. I think I know you from a place completely unlike this. 

What they say in its stead is something akin to, This is it. 

They might not have known each other in life, but they would be together in death just the same. 

Achilles sat outside of his tent, his back and shoulders hunched, his jaw squared. He looked off into the distance, where opposite forces gathered beyond the blood stained earth. Where fear ripened the dusty air and stained the faces of both foes and allies like ash. 

There was the prickle of eyes upon him, but he did not look up. Accusing or sympathetic eyes washed over him, and he endured them. He could stand, stretch his arms above his head, and then retreat into his tent. Patroclus would be there. He would raise an eyebrow at Achilles as if to say, "Have you come to your senses?" but he would not say such a thing. He had said it enough times. 

Achilles remembered Patroclus whispering, "You are foolish." The last word was blotted against Achilles' lips, much like the similar chosen words that would follow. Stubborn and childish gave way to wait and ah and oh. 

"There. Touch me there." The bed creaked underneath their weight as the cool breeze from outside made the opening to their tent flap, wave, and flutter. 

"If I am so foolish," Achilles had said almost as an afterthought, his fingertips dancing across Patroclus' collarbone. The skin being soft and sun-kissed. "What does that make you?" 

There was a pause. Patroclus' fingers were warm against Achilles' cheek. They touched him until Achilles raised his eyes from the hollow of Patroclus' neck, and met Patroclus' eyes. Such eyes, he thought. Such eyes. 

Patroclus' smile made the corners of his eyes crease with lines. 

"A hero," he whispered. 

The ground beneath Achilles' feet was damp with dew. He watched it, awaiting nothing, just that it remain exactly as it was. Some things, he thought, should not change. Some things, he thought, should forever be as they were. 

"The sun rises," a gruff voice said from beside Achilles. 

His hands clasped in his lap, Achilles looked up. His neck cracked and creaked. The sky was more orange than red, and more yellow than orange. "So it does," he muttered. 

They brought it not long ago. They placed it on the chair in the corner of his tent with a nod that might as well have been nothing. 

Patroclus did not doubt his decision. He did not doubt his fellow men, his friends, or his brothers. He looked at the suit of armor sitting on the chair in the corner of his tent, and it was not those things that he doubted, but his own abilities. Could he, would he, can he? 

Achilles had not said a word. Achilles had sat in his chair, his mouth a straight line, the wisps of light hair that escaped its bond flying across his face, obscuring eyes and nose. 

"I do not need your approval," Patroclus had said, his hands curled at his sides when he wanted nothing more than to reach out, touch a shoulder or an arm or a hip. Just touch; nothing else. 

Still Achilles said nothing, though when he met Patroclus' gaze, his look read as, "Oh, but you do." 

The suit's surface had been wiped clean so that it shined. It almost seemed to ripple in the flicker of the candlelight like a pebble in a pond. If he were to touch it, would his fingers disappear into it? He wondered. He didn't dare. He stared at the surface, and his own reflection stared back at him. It was not unlike looking into the stream and seeing your face, your eyes, and the bow of your lips. Little features gathering together to complete a portrait; threads that were woven over one another to create a tapestry. 

"We will be giants," Achilles had said years ago, when they were but boys. They had taken discarded shields and sandals, breastplates and bracers and dressed themselves to look the part of soldiers. Achilles' slim fingers worked to fasten the buckles at Patroclus' sides. The breastplate was heavy and threatened to weigh Patroclus to the ground. He fought to take deep breaths. Achilles, he noticed, did not have difficulty with the weight of his own armor. Achilles tugged, and Patroclus almost stumbled. 

"Giants?" he laughed, raising his arms above his head to better aid Achilles. "Why giants?" 

Achilles, after a moment of adjustment, fell to his knees in front of Patroclus. His hair fanned across his forehead and into his eyes, and, laughing again, Patroclus reached down to brush it away. 

"My dear Patroclus," Achilles said. "Are you afraid of standing tall?" 

To which Patroclus had shook his head. To which Patroclus had laughed and shrugged his shoulders -- jingle jangle went the loose buckles dangling from the armor that was not even his. 

Standing in his tent, Achilles' armor, which Achilles himself had refused to wear, which Patroclus had agreed to don and battle in, placed in front of him, proud and larger than life, Patroclus thought, Yes. Maybe I am. 

There was a clatter from outside. Wake up, wake up. Battle begins anew. 

Not having slept at all, Patroclus rubbed a hand across his face. He pinched the bridge of his nose and then ran a hand through his dark hair. 

When he turned to blow out his candle, he kept his eyes on the armor. 

Achilles stood from his seat when Patroclus exited the tent. He held his shield not in front of him, but by his side. It was difficult to look one another in the eye because of Patroclus' helmet, and so Achilles found himself looking at the nose guard between Patroclus' eyes. 

They stood there, and because words failed them both, Achilles ducked his head. The men standing nearby, seeing him, followed suit. Patroclus looked around him, at his fellow men and soldiers giving him a quiet salute of gratitude, and merely nodded. The armor scraped against his skin as he walked past them, his head held high. 

 


End file.
